You may be wondering why we’ve called you here today. Some of the more alert among you may also have noticed that we’re not Uncle Ranty. It’s the hair, isn’t it? No, Uncle Ranty can’t come to the keyboard right now. We kind of wish we could say it was because he’d been locked up for eating his third least-hated editor – but there’s no evidence of that, so we’re stuck with him for now.

Truth be told, as of the last time we saw him, he’s locked himself in the bathroom with a water resistant games console to play Skyrim. His last intelligible words were: “Screw this, I’ve had enough of this garbage. I’m off to live in a fantasy world to rival that of any poxy reader of a right wing UK newspaper.”

He also said something about forcibly extracting editors’ heads from tax-evading owners’ rectums, but we’re not entirely sure what he means by that. He seemed to be deeply annoyed by the wall-to-wall intrusive horror-porn reporting on the Manchester bombing this week.

Now, that last is a bit of a conjecture because by then he was also muttering about eating a TARDIS at the weekend, and threatening to go back and cancel our mothers if we didn’t bring him pizza.

From a quiet sit down with his scribbled notes, screen captures from his phone, and some of the less colourful swearing it looks like he was going to, uh, discuss the tabloid calls for suspension of the presumption of innocence, as well as their use of the phrase ‘final solution’.

Uncle Ranty may return soon, but from the noises coming from the other room he’s preferring to shout at virtual dragons and limit his weapon brandishing to the virtual realms. We’ll keep him distracted so he doesn’t make things worse.

As his assistants, we’d just like to say: be kind to each other and yourselves, and be a force for good just like all the amazing people who have rallied to help in Manchester. Don’t be a dick, it really doesn’t help.